CNR recommends cannabis tax chart

[UPDATE January 2019: Yes, the chart is pretty good, but there are a few errors. To be sure, check original sources.]

This is the best comparative chart on cannabis taxes I’ve seen, from Fox Rothschild, an 800-person law firm. [UPDATED chart is here: https://www.foxrothschild.com/publications/cannabis-industry-state-tax-guide/.] The big accounting firms were still steering clear of marijuana, last I heard, and this is the biggest law firm I’ve heard of that’s been publicly associated with marijuana.

UPDATE: I don’t intend faint praise for this work. It’s a huge undertaking, and a valuable one. Thanks to Jennifer Benda and Jacob Millis for doing it. I want to be an expert on marijuana taxes, but didn’t have the patience for this big job. This kind of exhaustive scholarship illuminates the landscape, as Alvin Rabushka did with Taxation in Colonial America.

In 2011, I could fit all the world’s marijuana taxes onto page 257 of this. But there is more work to be done. Now, there are hundreds of local taxes in California and Oregon alone — like Arcata’s electricity tax. Local fees could fill a book already.

Now to pick nits with the chart.

The Fox Rothschild chart glosses over the way Nevada always taxes by weight. https://newrevenue.org/2017/07/02/nevadas-70-cent-per-gram-tax-on-marijuana-flower/

And it glosses over the way Colorado often taxes by weight. https://newrevenue.org/2017/07/23/is-colorados-new-marijuana-tax-leaky/

I haven’t read the whole chart, but I haven’t found any other problems so far.

UPDATE: Louisiana’s sales tax will apply to medical cannabis, we learn after publication of the chart, which reported it as “unclear.” http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/business/article_504d1b92-6f24-11e8-94c2-5bd6afda20a5.html. And the chart’s supposition that some Louisiana excise tax will apply reportedly refers to the possibility that a tax will be enacted in the future.